I’ve gotten pretty good at skunk abatement. Just ask my wife/partner-in-stink. If you can get her to stop laughing, that is. The first time we had a skunk problem I called the county and asked if they could come trap it. They could, but it turns out they have to kill them after they trap them. (Something about the law… yada, yada.) Heck, anyone can kill a skunk. I wanted to move them. Unharmed. (After all, they’re just doing what skunks do. And they were here first.) So after a little trial and error we hit on a fairly successful process for safely/humanely relocating skunks. It’s better for the skunk, it’s better for us, and—believe it or not—it’s actually kind of fun. In a goofy, semi-thrilling, Tom Sawyer-ish way.
 
There’s invariably some trepidation, it sometimes takes longer than planned, and yeah, it’s occasionally downright smelly. But every time we manage to relocate one of the little stinkers to greener pastures, we’re always glad we went through the effort.
 
Guess what? The same thing applies to our “literary skunks.” You know—those scenes (or chapters or sections or maybe even entire books) that, while perhaps well-plotted or well-written when considered alone, don’t really work in the larger context. We sometimes like our stinky little darlings too much to kill them dead, so we tend to hem-and-haw and lightly edit and rationalize, trying to find some way to justify leaving them in the work at hand. Which we often do… to the detriment of the larger work.
 
There’s another way. One that’ll allow you to remove these favorite-but-ill-fitting scenes without the trauma of killing them dead: Excise them (and artfully re-connect the remaining loose ends in the ms), re-label as appropriate, and save them in a folder of “favorite unused scenes” or similar.
 
Some real-world examples…
 
The original draft of Road Rash had a scene in the middle that ended up not working, plot-wise—due to downstream events—so I rewrote the chapter without that scene, but filed the original chapter away because it had things I liked. (Primarily descriptions of onstage connection and communication.) And sure enough, in the penultimate chapter two friends are onstage again (after some time apart) and—with a little revision—I used maybe a page of the original material (split into two separate scenes) and I was really happy with the result. (It’s not that it saved me a bit of work. It’s that the writing captured a vibe I wanted to portray, and I didn’t want to lose that when I excised the original scene.)
 
A while back I wrote a short story featuring a middle-aged woman who had a rather harrowing day on the job. I wasn’t real happy with the resolution but I really liked the character/setting and the opening adventure. So I ended up taking the basic scenario (rewritten with the protagonist being younger) and used it as the opening of a novel. (Which is now out on sub, so light a candle for me…)
 
I know someone whose OBFN was an adult thriller that wasn’t acquired, but he hung onto the original plot concept and later used it as the basis for a successful YA novel. Likewise, another author friend had a short story that didn’t really gain traction, but they expanded it into a novel (which did gain traction).
 
I recently revised a WIP which had a book-within-a-book as part of it. And during revisions (you guessed it) the “book-in-book” sections had to go… they broke the flow and perhaps confused things for the reader. The revised manuscript is tighter and better for it. But I also saved those sections—because, in the micro, they were some of my favorite parts—and I may write a book based on that character later. (So light another candle, please.)
 
So yes, retaining selected sections you’ve trimmed can give you potential seedlings that might grow into something interesting later.
 
But (and this may be the more important part) the act of excising the scenes and carefully storing them away as a separate document for possible later use makes it far easier to cut them. Because in your mind you’re not really killing them… you’re putting them in the deep freeze for later, which is a lot easier to stomach than simply highlighting and deleting.
 
I’m certainly not suggesting we do this with all our trimmed passages… that’s crazy talk. By all means, when you see something that clearly needs to go, the best path is almost always to cut it and move on. But on the occasion you find something superfluous which you also happen to love, try the following: Cut and save it, continue on with whatever editing you’re doing, then go back afterward and read the passage without the extra text. Assuming it’s better, mollify yourself with the thought that your favorite passage is safely in the vault, then move on. The manuscript at hand will almost certainly be stronger for it, and who knows… you might even find fertile ground for the excised text to spring to life in the future.
 
Sure, skunks are cute little critters. But that doesn’t mean they belong in your basement or backyard or under your porch. But it also doesn’t mean you have to kill them dead. Make the effort to move them safely and you’ll find you can live skunk-free and guilt-free.
 
Win-win.
 

 
We all get stuck at times. With a capital S. I don’t mean small-scale stuck (you’re in the middle of a manuscript and chapter fourteen still doesn’t feel quite right). I mean big-scale stuck, like when a project you’ve spent a couple of years on seems like a total failure. Or maybe career-size stuck, or even life-size stuck.
 
So let’s get the platitudes out of the way first…
 
Yes, you should be thankful for whatever you do have, whether that’s health or family or friends or a dog that loves you or that you live in a first-world locale instead of a poverty-stricken third-world country.
 
Yes, it will probably feel better in the morning… or in a week or a month or a year. So give it time.
 
Yes, a long run (or hike or ride or dogwalk or whatever) along a remote trail will probably add some badly needed endorphins to your brain chemistry and some perspective to your situation.
 
And yes, a glass of wine with a sympathetic friend is almost certainly in order.
 
And I would recommend all of the above, as an attitude adjustment technique if nothing else.
 
But none of these is going to solve the root problem (unless your definition of ‘solution’ is: feeling slightly better while continuing to live with the same ongoing issue, with no hope of real change).
 
Part of the issue is usually that we’re unsure of the steps to take to mitigate the situation. Hence the word, stuck. We don’t know what to do, so we do nothing. Other than feel bad. Or complain. Which leads to feeling even worse.
 
Everyone is different, but for me, one of the main factors in feeling better about a bad situation is the idea that there’s something—however small—that I can actually do about it. It doesn’t necessarily fix the situation—at least not right away—but frequently it fixes my brain to the point where I stand a fighting chance of fixing the situation eventually.
 
Sometimes we get stuck in a do-loop, centered around the issue of, “How the heck can I get where I want to be? What are my first steps? And the next? And then…?” We spin our wheels because there are an almost unlimited number of possible actions, and there’s no way to see which will lead to success. If only we could see ahead as clearly as we can look back, right?
 
I don’t have a time machine, but there's an exercise that might get us close. Basically, it involves looking “back” from an imagined future and figuring out the likely steps that got us there. Which may sound goofy on the face of it, so let’s move away from the theory and consider a practical example…
 
Let’s say you’ve worked hard on a project for a good bit of time. It could be any number of things—creative, educational, career-related, artistic—but for the sake of the example we’ll assume it’s a writing project… let’s say a novel. You’ve written, revised, edited, and polished it to a point where you’re really happy with it. So you spend another big chunk of time and energy shopping it around… only to eventually strike out. Maybe none of the agents you contacted bit on your query at all. Or perhaps a few responded with a request for a partial, but it didn’t go beyond that. Or maybe one or two requested the full manuscript—but in the end none of them offered representation. Or maybe you shopped directly to editors, with similar results. Or maybe you had some nibbles and close calls (heartbreaking, to say the least!) but in the end it was a pass.
 
You’re naturally disheartened, doing all this work only to get skunked. When you’re ready to deal with it (after the appropriate mood elevation techniques, as discussed above) the first decision is to determine whether or not you think the project is worth further effort. If not, that’s an easy one—set it aside and get on to your next project, whatever that may be. (Hopefully with some hard-won wisdom in your toolkit which will increase the odds of success with your next WIP.)
 
But if you really feel the project has value and means a lot to you and it’d break your heart to give up on it—yet are unclear about exactly what to do next—this is where the “looking back from an imagined future” process can help get you motivated and back in the saddle. As follows…
 
1. Decide what success would look like for the project under discussion.
 
2. Relax, close your eyes, and imagine it’s a year or two down the road and you’ve finally achieved success with the project. (Not that you might achieve it, or that you will achieve it, but that you have achieved it, in some realistic, non-magical, believable way.)
 
3. Now imagine you’re being interviewed in the wake of the success and someone asks you to delineate the steps you took to reach this point.
 
4. List those steps, being as realistic and detailed as you can. (Break down the process into manageable chunks and place them in a logical sequence.)
 
5. Follow through on those steps.
 
So to re-boot our novel, for example, the process might look like this…
 
You decide that ‘success’ for this project would be your novel getting published. Determine if this means Trad/Big-5 (which should really be called “Big-500,” but that’s another post) or small press or indie, as this will affect the subsequent process. For the sake of the example, you choose traditional publishing.
 
You imagine this as though it’s a string of established facts: Query, submittal, agent representation, publisher acquisition, editorial back-and-forth, copyediting, ARCs, publicity, book birthday, reviews, signings at your fave bookstores, and your book on the shelves of stores and libraries across the country.
 
Now: What steps had to be taken for all this to happen? Be realistic—no hand-waving allowed here. (FYI, “I ran into David Levithan at Starbucks and he asked about the pages under my arm and I handed him my first chapter and before he finished his latte he offered me a contract with a six-figure advance...” is not realistic.) A realistic list might include the following:
 
1. Make the manuscript as strong as possible. Read it as though you didn’t write it. (The literary equivalent of “Drive it like you stole it!”) Be merciless when it comes to cutting or revising favorite parts if you know in your gut they don’t further the story. And do all the other things—large and small—that can tighten the prose, improve the flow, and not take the reader out of the story mid-passage. (Many of which we’ve discussed over the previous 35 posts.)
 
2. Review any critical feedback you got from people whose opinions matter in this context. (Agents and editors, primarily.) Even though it may be a lot of work, address any feedback that makes you think (even reluctantly), “Okay, okay… I guess they have a point.” And if you get the same feedback from multiple sources, you definitely want to take a long, hard look at it.
 
3. Draft a new query that’s short, to-the-point, and non-sociopathic. Remember, you can’t talk someone into liking your manuscript… you can only write them into liking it by virtue of the actual writing. But you can easily talk them out of wanting to read it.  In other words, don’t be cute or clever with your query. Be professional. Besides a brief description of your work, mention only the things that will actually matter to the recipient (previous publishing credits, perhaps a realistic comp or two if applicable, a mention if you’ve met them/heard them speak at a conference, and your appreciation for other works they’ve represented or edited if this applies) and none of the things that don’t matter (pretty much everything else). There are approximately 17 zillion examples of successful queries around. Read a couple dozen current ones to get a sense of what they should and shouldn’t do, then draft the best version you can for your book.
 
4. Do the necessary research to find agents and/or editors who’ve represented and/or edited works similar to yours. Several agents and/or editors… but only those who work in your particular field or genre, and only one per agency or imprint. (There are so many resources available for this—several books' worth—that I’m not going to list them here, but also keep in mind that many authors thank their agent and editor in the afterward of their books. But always double check regardless, because things in publishing can change rapidly.)
 
5. Choose carefully, as once someone at a given agency or imprint has passed, it’s less likely that another in the same office will accept (because—with editors especially—they generally share among co-workers and look for concurrence). In my nonfiction/periodical workshops I advocate not shooting for the top of the masthead. You may have better luck with someone newer/younger/lower on the food chain. (New agents are typically looking for clients to start their roster, and once an associate editor is allowed to acquire, they likewise start reading in earnest. Some will even post on social about their wish list.)
 
6. Tailor the query for the particular recipient, with all of the above in mind. Not just changing the name at the top, but actually drafting the letter for them specifically… who they are, where they work, the position they hold (there’s a difference between associate editor, editor, and editorial director) and—most important—what they’ve done in the field, either with representation or editing, and where your work fits into this.
 
7. Submit the queries, keeping careful records of where and when each query was sent. And as soon as you’ve sent queries for all the potential agents or editors on your list, start a new round of research, generate more possible leads, and sent out another wave of queries.
 
8. Follow up. Obviously send any requested partial/full samples right away with a brief note saying, “Thanks, here’s what you requested,” but also follow up on any rejections that incorporate specific manuscript suggestions or changes. (With a brief note: "If I made the suggested changes, would you be willing to take a look at it again?")
 
9. When you get representation or manuscript acquisition, be open to revision. (See this post where editors state the number one thing they look for in a new writer is the willingness to revise.) Virtually no initial submission—no matter how brilliant—is perfect as-is. And editors (and agents) know this. So if you think your manuscript is untouchable, this is a serious roadblock to publication. And if an editor wants to do back-and-forthing before official acceptance, I would absolutely be open to that also. Maybe they’re trying to get a promising manuscript to a point where they think they can sell it to their boss, or maybe they’re assessing how easy you are to work with. Or likely both. Regardless, this is definitely a success path. Don’t be precious—work with her.
 
10. Be a team player at every step. Meet your deadlines. Be professional. Don’t be difficult. Help out with publicity (via social, email lists, book signings, author presentations, etc.) when the time comes.
 
So… looking back from an imagined future success, the above is what a likely success path looks like to me. Obviously the latter parts aren’t completely within your control, but luckily the most important parts (the first six or so) are all you. And ninety percent of the whole damn thing is the very first step: make sure your work is as strong as possible, in all regards. Everything else is mostly common sense and professionalism, tied to a lot of hard work and a little bit of luck. (But the harder you work, the luckier you get, right…?)
 
It’s not easy. If you want easy, you’re in the wrong line of work. But it’s the best way I know of to get back in the game after you strike out with a project you really believe in.
 
TL; DR:  We can lick our wounds for a while, but sooner or later we have to ask ourselves, “If this were to succeed, what steps would’ve had to have been taken in order to get there?” And—if we’re serious about succeeding with this particular project—we need to get back in the ring and take those steps.